Nights
by RarelyRational
Summary: This is just me trying to get angst out of my system. Basically it is a little look into Ianto with regards to Jack set during season one somewhere between They Keep Killing Suzie and End of Days probably. Rated T for no reason at all other than paranoia really.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood or any of it's characters and stuff. It would be awesome if I did though.**

**A/N: So...this is angst. Sorry. To those of you who have stumbled across this and don't read my other WIP then enjoy the angst but be forewarned it's basically just me purging out these feelings so I can try to get in the right mindframe to get back to work on the aforementioned WIP. To those of you who have been reading my other story "A Different Path" then HOLY CRAP I AM SORRY. I promise, it's not abandoned I just haven't been in the right head space to write the Ianto and Jack of that story. I tried to write a few chapters but they were horribly depressing and introspective and maudlin and just so angst ridden and it just wasn't pretty. So this little one shot exists to try and help me get into the right headspace to start churning out useable chapters again.**

**Warning: I don't have a beta and I didn't self edit. Like I said this is just something I needed to get out of my system.**

**Enjoy?**

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At work Ianto watches Jack flirt with Gwen, watches the longing glances, watches the brooding, watches the pain on Jack's face when Gwen mentions Rhys, watches the clear _want_. He wears an impassive face and hides himself behind a nice suit and even nicer coffee. He offers the faintest of smiles when he catches Jack watching him. He takes Owen's rants and Tosh's distracted silence with a slight tilt of the head. At times, he is sure they think he had it together. At times, he's quite certain he passes for stable.

He isn't, of course, but this is Torchwood and Torchwood isn't conducive to weakness. That's what he was taught at Torchwood London, after all. Yvonne had shown a weakness and look where that had landed them.

It wasn't as though he had even needed to be taught that lesson though, he'd learned it a long time ago, way back when he was growing up on the Estate, just trying to live long enough to see the next day. He couldn't be weak. If he'd been weak, they would have torn him apart.

So Ianto hid. He repressed. He showed the world an indifferent face and some mornings, after putting on his suit and knotting his tie and closing his eyes for that brief moment to make sure there wasn't the faintest emotion showing, he'd look in the mirror and he wouldn't recognize himself. He usually ended those days in Jack's bed, trying to feel something, anything at all. But that only made him feel worse the next day because he'd remember why he worked so hard to not feel in the first place.

The nights he wasn't with Jack, the nights Jack found someone else to spend the night with, Ianto didn't sleep. Not because he missed Jack though, he was loathe to admit, that did play an increasingly larger role in that. No, it was because he was left alone with his thoughts.

He had always been more of a thinker than anything else. But after everything that had happened to him in 23 short years…well, his thoughts weren't a sanctuary anymore. They were horrible, nipping and tearing at his soul, bubbling up and forcing him to remember, forcing him to feel, forcing him to face himself. Sometimes he'd cry, but not often. That was usually after a bottle of scotch or two. Sometimes he'd toast Lisa.

Lisa.

He'd been enough for Lisa, something he still had trouble understanding. She had loved him, and had been happy with him, and hadn't minded that some days he couldn't love her because of how long he'd spent repressing that very emotion. And on the nights of the days he wouldn't recognize his own reflection she wouldn't say a word, she'd just take his hand in her own small, perfect hand and lead him into their bedroom, laying him down and running her fingers through his hair until the slight tremor in his left hand stopped.

Jack and the others had always assumed it was Torchwood London that broke Ianto, that Canary Wharf was the defining moment that made him just that little bit brittle and jagged that seemed to fit in Cardiff. Ianto let them think that, because he couldn't be bothered to explain that he'd been broken long before that. He doubted he could ever remember a time when he was whole. He hadn't been the right kind of person to make it through his youth unscathed. He'd always stuck out a little, always been just that tiny bit too different. He'd tried to fit in once and all that had led to was a shoplifting charge. That never ceased to embarrass him when he thought about it. Not because he'd committed the crime, but rather that he'd been caught. He had stolen many times before. He'd just had an off day. He'd just been weak.

He wasn't enough for Jack.

He knew that, accepted that, and tried his best to live with it. But it was harder and harder for him to do that with each passing moment. Jack was slowly becoming enough for him.

But he'd never be enough for the great Captain Jack Harkness, or whoever he really was because Ianto really wasn't under any delusions that Jack had actually told them anything remotely close to the truth when it came to his personal life. Jack was, if that was at all possible, even more private than Ianto. That irked Ianto from time to time but not enough to try and find out his secrets. Ianto knew that, some nights, Jack didn't see him when they were together. He knew Jack pretended he was someone else, that they were somewhere else, somewhere far, far away in the sky where Jack had been happy once. Because, under all his bravado and charisma Jack wasn't happy.

Neither was Ianto, but Jack didn't mention noticing that, even though Ianto was sure he did. Ianto didn't know happiness though. He had never been closely acquainted with happiness, spending more time with disappointment really.

Some days Ianto wondered if he would have pulled Jack out from the wreckage of Torchwood London had he been the one strapped to the conversion unit, whether he would go to the same lengths to save Jack that he had to save Lisa. Some days, after watching Jack pine over Gwen for hours, he told himself he wouldn't.

But that was a lie.

Jack was slowly becoming enough for Ianto, with his occasional attentions and split affections. Ianto minded less and less that Jack wanted other people as well, that Jack didn't just want him.

But some nights it stung that he would never be enough for Jack.

Some nights he found himself wishing that Jack would take Ianto's hand in his own and lead him to his bedroom and chase away the demons that never seemed to leave Ianto alone.

Some night he found himself wishing that Jack would knock on the door of his dingy little flat and smile at him like he was something special.

Some nights he found himself wishing that Jack would look at him and _see _him, _really _see him. See past the Ianto he presented to the world to the scared little boy who loved too much that was buried deep inside.

Some nights he wished that he had the strength to tell Jack everything, to show him the scars he'd managed to keep hidden and explain the ones that he hadn't.

Some nights he wished he was enough for Jack.

Most nights he wished he was enough for Jack.

At work Ianto watches Jack flirt with Gwen, moon over Gwen, stare longingly at Gwen and pretends that it doesn't break his heart. He pretends his heart doesn't play a role in this thing at all, that his heart is as far removed from the whole situation as can be.

He's lying, of course, but that's sort of the point of pretending.

There are never any nights when he admits his true feelings because that would destroy him.

There are, however, some nights when he wishes he could.

Ianto watches Jack flirt with Gwen and knows that he's fraying at the edges, knows that he's losing control. What he has with Jack is casual. No feelings involved.

Ianto had thought he would be good at that, considering he barely ever feels.

But at night he knows he isn't.

He's not enough for Jack and it's killing him. The worst part is that some nights he doesn't even mind.

He's not enough for Jack.

And at night he lets himself wish he was.


End file.
